[JDEV] Regarding the GPL and commercial products

[Chris Wilkes]

On Fri, Sep 20, 2002 at 08:35:28AM -0700, SARADHI wrote:
> 
> Can the application that results from the additions or modifications
> can be sold as a Commercial Product and still mentioning the users
> that we r using Jabber open standard technology ???

I believe that anyone can take the GPLed code, add their mods, and then
resell it *provided that they provide the source code to it*.  Kinda like
RedHat does with its linux distro.

Not that you insinuated that this is the case, but it should be pointed
out that the FAQ point for Jabber licensing:
	http://www.jabber.org/faq.html#AEN59
makes it clear that 'jabber' is a protocol standard, like http, and you
can make a proprietary client all you want, like the IE browser.

There's another question in Saradhi's post and that is "GPLing" the look
and feel of a client.  There's really only so many ways to make a client
look (WinJab looks like Exodus looks like Yahoo IM, etc).  So with
bchat's "Business Chat" IM looking like ColinJab that doesn't
automatically mean that they copied it.  Maybe they copied the look of
it, who knows.  It would be interesting to see if an author of a GPLed
work can force someone to reveal their source code (didn't this happen
with a DVD player recently?)

Chris